Category Archives: CREATIVE WRITING

All of life is mythology in progress. Twenty observers of any given event would if asked, give varying reports of what they had observed. In fact any individual’s story about such would probably be altered over time. Only in print does a story have an opportunity to remain unchanged over time. But if a story or a report of an event makes for interesting reading and becomes a part of history, historians are notorious for arguing among themselves over the accuracy of recorded events. And then there are translations to other languages. There may even be translations within the original language as time changes that language into something new.

(Speak from the heart while writing, ignoring all rules and tools; write from the heart and edit with the brain.)

We are all Creative Writers. We are writing about our lives and affirming, altering and refining our values with every thought, with every word and with every action. We will benefit as individuals and as a society by becoming better Creative Writers. But first…

We learn.

I don’t know when I learned to scat. I was probably listening to Ella bounce seemingly unrelated phonemes around, with a doodah here and a skidoo there and suddenly realizing that she had in so doing transitioned her musical self from vocalist to instrument and I joined her.

Sixty years later I found myself folded into a cramped pose with a tiny, newish, great-grand daughter on my knee who sensing Grandpa’s discomfort, began to cry. Without the slightest hesitation, Gramps began to scat , bending down to little Bella’s right ear, allowing the random syllables to slide past the lips of an old man to the aural receiver and the senses of a curious babe.

With the last syllable, the tearful wail of a frightened child was silenced as Baby Bella focussed on the last two syllables of a Grandfathers’s refrain and she mimicked the sound,..